Wednesday, February 1, 2017

U.S PIRG Fellowship

PIRG stands for the Public Interest Research Group. We stand up for the public against powerful interests when they push the other way, winning concrete results on real problems that affect millions of lives.

Whether it’s stopping the overuse of antibiotics on factory farms, banning Monsanto’s Roundup unless and until it’s proven safe, protecting consumers from unsafe or unscrupulous practices, or other problems, the conventional wisdom says that issues are either 'liberal' or 'conservative.’ But these problems affect each and every one of us, regardless of whether you live in a red or blue state. And our solutions aren't ‘Republican’ or ‘Democratic’ — they're just common sense.

The challenge is that powerful special interests have used their enormous resources to gain influence within our political system, while casting doubt on our solutions. And if the special interests and their allies in the White House, statehouses, or boardrooms push in the wrong direction, we’re ready to stand up for the public, and keep fighting until we achieve real results.

So how do we do this? We start by doing our homework. We break the problem down and make sure we can win the argument on the merits — that’s a given. But we also need to inform the public, get attention for the problem, and show that people are with us.

Visibility alone isn’t enough. In every campaign with PIRG, we need people to mobilize political and public support. We build broad coalitions with other groups and communities who care about solving the problem — regardless of whether they’re on the left or right side of the aisle. We take our message to the media, making sure the public and decision makers know this is an issue they should be paying attention to. We build an online following, mobilizing them to make sure we’re putting political pressure on the right people at the right time in the right way. And we go out and raise the financial support it takes to achieve our goals, and build for the future.

We take this non-partisan, fact-driven, result-oriented approach to all of the campaigns we work on. And we’ve used these strategies to get results for decades, so we’re ready for the challenges ahead.

We’re hiring people to join our team, and help us get concrete results on these real problems at U.S. PIRG fellowship.